Transmigrated as a Ghost

With the allure of a new dungeon put in front of them, Boreas and his party quickly decided to join up with Alexandra who had discovered the place and go and investigate it for themselves.

"It was certain to be a huge discovery, and dungeons are some of the only places where unique skill orbs can be obtained. So, for our party that had gotten pretty high level at that point it was a no-brainer that we would venture out to this dungeon even though it was hundreds of miles away from any civilization."

And while Boreas glossed over the next part of their journey, Marcus knew that it must have been around then that he and Gwyneira got together, because he remembered the words that Juniper started using in her diary became far more hostile towards Gwyneira.

'Ah yes that is right. She had started calling her "that dragon bitch" if I remember correctly.' Marcus thought as he remembered reading through her diary.

"Once we finally made it to the dungeon, we all went in cautiously. Only to find that once we were inside, we were all given random quests to clear within the area we found ourselves in before we could leave or move on."

Marcus began chuckling at this point because he recalled the absolutely ridiculous conditions that Boreas had to clear at one point.

'I wonder if he will tell us about how he had to headbutt a bunch of earth elementals.'

However, Boreas did not go into detail about the wackier of the achievements he and his party had to clear, so Marcus decided to let him save some face and not tell everyone about them.

Though he did mention when they found Salvia, Juniper's companion spirit who was still looking over the castle's atrium to this day.

"It was around that time that our party became really seamless and together. Juniper stopped glowering at Gwyneira, and Alexandra became a full-fledged member since we went through a lot together in that place that can only be described as a hellhole."

Boreas continued on talking about the horrors they faced within the Great Gome Woods Dungeon, but also the impeccable rewards that they reaped as well.

"For all the trouble we had to go through, whenever we managed to beat a boss, the treasure chest was packed with some outstanding rewards." Boreas said with a gleam in his eyes.

There was no doubt that a number of the items in the castle's vaults to this day actually came from Boreas and his party's expedition into the Great Gome Woods Dungeon.

"After around two years of exploring the dungeon though, we were all done, and Alexandra managed to accomplish what she wanted by gathering enough materials to help out her home nation that is on the edge of the continent to the west of here. She had traveled quite far in search of a place to earn a lot of money to help them out, and for as dangerous and horrible that dungeon is, it certainly is packed full of valuable items."

Once they were fed up with the dungeon, Boreas told them all about how just trying to exit the place was an arduous task. Even while backtracking they had to clear new trials to exit any given area, so it took them around another year and a half just to exit the dungeon.

"When we got out and made out way back to the nearest town, we found that things were quite different." Boreas said with a grave tone.

While the town and surrounding settlements had gotten quite a bit larger, they were now being patrolled by Tralenstein soldiers, and the people were being heavily taxed to the point of being left almost nothing.

"During our time in the dungeon Tralenstein fought a bloody and costly war with two of its neighbors to the south causing them to decide it was time to levy some heavy taxes on their growing frontier, when up until recently the people had actually been pretty far-removed from Tralenstein's politics."

Naturally the people were not happy to suddenly have all of their hard-earned goods and money being taken away, but there was little that many of them could do to stop a superpower like Tralenstein from doing what they wanted. At least, not until Boreas got involved.

"As I told you earlier, in the dungeon I found one of the devices that would allow me to claim being a king if I got the support of enough people living within a territory I designated as mine. To my group and I Tralenstein really was not our home, but the northern frontier was. As I was a historian form Earth, I knew of plenty of examples where colonies would rise up in revolt for independence due to heavy taxation, so I used my knowledge to whip people up into a frenzy and started a war."

Though while Boreas said "war", what he really meant was a slaughter. His party was incredibly powerful at this point, with them all being over level seventy and each of them having more than one unique skill from their time in the Great Gome Woods Dungeon.

Tralenstein for its part was also fairly depleted from just having fought and won a war, so they were unable to properly respond with everything they had, and Boreas managed to force them out of the northern territories within a few weeks and claim it as his own with the support of the people.

"And that is how this kingdom was founded. There was a lot of work to be done after that and I definitely did not know what I as getting into, but it was a worthwhile experience." Boreas said with a wistful look as he remembered his time as king.

He only held the position for a short time before deciding to run off on more adventures and leave everything to his and Gwyneria's first son, but he never abandoned the kingdom and made sure that any interested powers knew that he and Gwyneira were protecting the place.

"On our trips abroad Gwyneira and I did at some point find out about the adventures guild and I invited them to check out our blossoming nation in order to get it some more protection and promote the growth of the people."

Luckily, he did manage to negotiate having Borealia accepted, but it came with some conditions.

"First any nation affiliated with the guild is unable to start a war and are not allowed to expand their territory via conquering other nations. You could even say what you did with Tralenstein was a bit of a grey area, and Gwyneira told me that the current king did receive some complaints about it." Boreas said.

"Second, we needed to send a quota of magic cores back to the guild's headquarters. And third, promise to send support to other member nations in case of crisis that was deemed too great to handle alone. Much like how Borealia requested their aid for battling against the Doomsday Worm even though it was unnecessary in the end."

There were a few other smaller stipulations that Boreas then listed off, but those three were the main ones that the guild enforced on all those who joined under it.